The House of HM the King broadcast the traditional Christmas message with which every year the Kings and their daughters wish all Spaniards a happy holiday season. From the Palacio de la Zarzuela they published on the site … this “Christmas”, for which they chose a photograph who was caught in Valdesotothe Asturian city that this year won the Exemplary City award from the Princess of Asturias Foundation.
With this unique image of the Royal Family, Don Felipe and Doña Letizia and their daughters wanted to keep the rural environment in mind during these holidays. Both the small municipalities and the livestock and agricultural regions and the natural landscapes, which are an example of work, sacrifice and full of life, as Princess Leonor herself highlighted last October in Valdesoto, where they enjoyed their comedies and bowling games. The four wanted to give special recognition to these rural areas which, even far from big cities, work every day to move forward and look for ways to innovate and modernize with the advance of new technologies.
In the same way that they wanted to remember these rural areas during a particularly difficult year, when last summer’s fires devastated areas of Galicia, Castile and León, Extremadura, Andalusia, Madrid, Catalonia, the Valencian Community, Zamora and Cáceres, burning more than 390,000 hectares that seriously affected rural life.
On the left side inside the greeting message you can read the message “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2026” in Ibarra Real Nova font. This is a font designed in the 18th century and used in the 1780 edition of Don Quixote made for the Royal Spanish Academy. Coinciding with the fourth centenary of the publication of the first part of Cervantes’ book, in the 21st century the Palacio de la Zarzuela has recovered it and created this digital version of typography, with which they enhance the Spanish typographic heritage.
On the right side of the card are the signatures of Their Majesties the Kings and Their Royal Highnesses the Princess of Asturias and the Infanta Sofía, as well as the handwritten text: “With all our affection and best wishes”. The congratulations close, on the outside, the shield and the motto “Service, commitment and duty” from the reign of Felipe VI.
Queen Sofia’s five dogs
Like every year, at the same time as the congratulations of the kings and their daughters are broadcast, from the Zarzuela Palace, those of Queen Sofia and Don Juan Carlos are also distributed. For the holidays, he includes a photograph featuring his dogs next to a Christmas tree. They are two black Cocker Spaniels, two Miniature Schnauzers and a beige Maltese Peekapoo. The five posed for the photographer of the House of the King, in the residence of the mother of Felipe VI, at the Zarzuela Palace.
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